Hi Scott,
I had a Silver BT tonight in the last lap of the club chaingang.
I was really impressed to see my TP jumping up by 8 watts and my HIE by 2.6Kj.
I initially thought my Signature has been underestimated until tonight but now after reading your comment I am afraid that the opposite may have happened. Any ideas?
Hi Fabio,
This is a fantastic effort, btw! Wow! Look at how MPA perfectly follows your Power output - the sign of a perfect all-out effort!
What I mean by short, hard efforts are <5s short sprints at/near Peak Power. The system can have a hard time determining if the data is valid, or an erroneous power meter spike. In your case, you held the effort for a good amount of time - there’s no doubt that high power is coming from you (and not just a transient spike from the PM). Hope that makes sense!
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Got one today on a ramp test, only bronze but welcome, subscriber to Xert and have been playing with free trials on virtual platforms for the visual distraction
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I guess my signature is probably a bit higher when fresh, given the BT came after an all-out ramp test…
Not sure what it means that my performance was ‘better’ on the (fatigued) steady 12-min than the ramp, given both were all-out…? Relatively better aerobic vs anaerobic capacity? Or is mix of HIE and TP slightly out?
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It’s not uncommon to see a (near) miss on a ramp test… some athletes have a hard time fully expressing their fitness on ramp tests.
What I’ve found can help a bit is to do a few short (~10s) all-out sprints leading into the ramp, separated with very, very light pedaling.
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Three months ago I was diagnosed with CML, a type of leukemia that is recently (last 20 years) treatable with a group of, basically, miracle drugs. I’m extremely fortunate that the medications are effective for me and are available to me. I hit a very low point in fitness but shortly after treatment began I have been able to use Xert to go from what felt like zero to 95% of where I was 6-8 months ago. I know this isn’t a typical use case for Xert but I have found it invaluable.
Let me show you my first BT (six weeks ago), TP ~120W with XSS skewed funny because of massive decay:
and my most recent one (today), TP ~260W (from a Zwift race):
finally the full progression:
I have had nine BT’s in the past six weeks as my fitness has returned. I want to express gratitude to the Xert team for providing such an engaging platform!
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Back to my favorite way to get a breakthrough - longish warmup then a Crit City (Downtown Dolphin) race in Zwift. Push for a breakthrough by halfway, recover a little and then push again at the finish. 
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This is from a recent coffee ride format on Zwift–2 laps easy and then one lap fulgazzzz. The breakthrough came as I was hanging on to the back of the A riders (I’m not one) and then trying to keep a couple of other pretenders behind me until the finish line. I finished with an impression of my stemcap on my forehead.
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I’ve determined that is the preferred position for VO2max RIBs.
Only problem is it doesn’t work well outdoors.
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lol. I’ve never tested this hypothesis, but I believe it.
Today at Tour de Zwift Í‘ve got a nice breakthrough - I thought my TP would raise but at the end my TP did not raise and only PP and HIE raised 
I should have gone harder but there was still a bit to go …
Overall getting 199XSS when rather doing 30 minutes race is not too bad I think
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Big bump in TP, things are going in the right direction after a couple of months of on/off sickness. Probably my best January form.
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was this done in a zwift race?
Yes! Mountain route, the radio tower almost killed me off.
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How often should we perform a BT workout?
You’ll see a warning under your name whenever 3 weeks have elapsed since last BT event.
Those who frequently race (ZRL or IRL) and ride hard HIIT workouts or challenge themselves outdoors may achieve frequent BTs and rarely see the warning.
Other times you may be riding an extended Base endurance period with Small or No Decay configured and not be worried about BTs until you resume HIIT workouts.
You can always force the issue when fresh/very fresh by riding a BT workout from the library in Slope mode until you reach a failure point on one or more intervals designed to draw MPA down.
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Big jump in PP after the ZRL last night. Not the typical zwift sustained effort but it was a tough race all the same.
I’m enjoying doing the hard weekly races to keep pushing fitness up even though I’m still in early build phase. Using xert to help me decide what workout is appropriate depending on how tired I am is great!
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Here is my first effort at a BT. Would be interested to know people thoughts? Got confused on the last set of intervals, what setting the trainer should be in slope/auto? I had it on slope 2%, then put it in resistance mode for the last 2 intervals and smashed it. Not sure if this is correct.
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